Setting Up for the First Big Beam

Getting started with this weaving contract looks like it’s going to be a real challenge. This is no surprise. I got the big peacock-colored beam home and on my loom. It’s gorgeous!



The first thing I noticed, however, is that it is warped in the opposite direction from how I work on my loom. I re-rigged the tension device on the beam to accommodate this. See how the spring wraps around the end of the tension arm? This is not ideal. I think it’ll work, though. If it doesn’t, I’ll try replacing the entire mechanism with a shorter spring to reduce friction on the tension arm.



Next, I noticed that this beam has a diameter 1” larger than my own. It was causing the back separation roller to make contact with the wooden rim. The height of the sectional loops actually prevented the beam from rotating. Oops! To fix it, I moved the separation roller to the lower position. (See how close that upper hole is to the rim?) This means that I can’t set up a second beam unless both beams are of the smaller size. The new roller position means that I’ll have to adjust the beater height so that the lower threads in the shed land properly on the shuttle track. It’s really no big deal for now.


The auto-advance mechanism is a miracle of modern loom building. It lets me focus on the weaving by advancing the fabric for me. I don’t have to stop weaving every couple of inches and advance it by hand. This makes it dead simple to achieve a perfectly consistent beat and really fall into a yardage-producing rhythm.

When I tried to attach the auto-advance mechanism, I found that the metal plate is too long to be mounted on my loom in the proper way. Instead of two bolts holding the back plate on, there is only one bolted extra tight. I will drill a new hole in the wooden arm to make it fit right. This is one benefit of buying an extremely used loom: it already has extra holes, so a few more don’t make any real difference.


Here’s the ratchet mechanism that will advance the cloth beam a tiny amount (1/20 of an inch) every time I beat a thread into place. That is, after I’ve spent some time getting it adjusted...


And here’s how the mechanism advances the beam for me.


I’m excited to have the parts home and mostly attached to the loom. Next comes the real work of threading the entire width, 1200 threads or so, and preparing to weave...